Directions: In the following passage, some of the words have been left out, each of which is indicated by a letter. Find the suitable word from the options given against each letter and fill up the blanks with appropriate words to make the paragraph meaningful. Following the Centre’s decision to withdraw high-value banknotes and impose withdrawal ____ (A) ____ on account-holders Banks have thus found themselves

Step-by-step solution

Usage of the verb “minimize” would be ungrammatical as the sentence is in the past tense. Hence, option E is immediately eliminated. If we observe the sentence we can infer that the word after ‘instead’ must be opposite in meaning to ‘jumped sharply’ and out of the choices given, only “stagnated” which refers to ‘become dull or inactive’ is fitting the gap appropriately. Option D is hence the correct answer.